


we could be heroes

by alethiometry



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Battle Couple, Established Relationship, F/M, Reunion Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 09:52:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17180705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alethiometry/pseuds/alethiometry
Summary: He senses her in his tent, lurking in a dark corner behind a fold of canvas, the moment he steps inside, weary from a long day of quarrels and quibbles with the diplomats and politicians of Makedonia. He’ll be glad to return to Sparta once this is all over; for all their posturing and needless demonstrations of masculinity, at least his countrymen like to keep their discourse brief, their conversations terse and to the damn point.“You’re just in time.” He grins as he un-slings his spear and shield from his back and props them against a tentpole. “I take it my messenger got to you safely?”





	we could be heroes

He senses her in his tent, lurking in a dark corner behind a fold of canvas, the moment he steps inside, weary from a long day of quarrels and quibbles with the diplomats and politicians of Makedonia. He’ll be glad to return to Sparta once this is all over; for all their posturing and needless demonstrations of masculinity, at least his countrymen like to keep their discourse brief, their conversations terse and to the damn point.

“You’re just in time.” He grins as he un-slings his spear and shield from his back and props them against a tentpole. “I take it my messenger got to you safely?”

“He approached me in the house that once belonged to Perikles,” comes her voice from the dark corner, and he can hear the smile there as she speaks, “in a room full of Athenians, bidding me to leave Athens and join you in slaying Athenians on the shores of Amphipolis.”

And she steps out of the shadows, and seeing her for the first time since—gods, since fucking Pylos—is like feeling the first autumn breeze cooling his skin after a long and stifling summer.

“I don’t know where you found that man, Brasidas,” says Kassandra, laughter dancing in her eyes, “but I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a mercenary with balls that huge.”

Brasidas laughs. “I do know how to pick them, don’t I?”

In two strides, she closes the distance between them and pulls him in for a kiss. He can still taste the sea-spray on her lips, as if she’d stepped off her ship and immediately made a beeline for his tent, and her fingers scratch at his beard the way she knows he likes, and _gods_ , he’s missed her so.

She breaks off the kiss and presses her forehead to his, cupping his cheek and running a gentle thumb against the scar there. She has new scars herself, running down and across her arms in thin lines. Nothing too severe, he notes with relief. A skirmish here, a brawl there: byproducts of the life she’s chosen to lead—and an indication of just how much time has passed since they last saw each other.

“It’s been too fucking long,” Kassandra breathes, as if she’s read his damn mind. “Gods, Brasidas, I thought—”

She stops herself, looking away, giving her head a little shake to banish the thought. He knows. His mind has wandered into those depths, too, in the days and weeks after Pylos, when he thought her gone, when the haze of pain from his injuries lifted just enough for him to glimpse a world devoid of her smile—but it will do neither of them any good to revisit that darkness. Not here, not now. Not tonight, when they’ve finally found their way back to one another, on the eve before the battle that just might end this endless fucking war.

“The Daughters of Artemis will fight with you tomorrow,” Kassandra says instead, straightening her shoulders and standing tall and proud. “These wild northern lands are theirs even more so than they are Sparta’s, and they have every right to defend it from men who want to claim it for themselves. I trust that you’ll keep their interests in consideration, when the day is won.”

This is why he loves her, Brasidas thinks. There is something about her that forces people to listen to what she has to say, and she could use that power to sway masses, to tip anything she wants in her favor—and yet she doesn’t. The blood of Spartan kings runs through her veins, but she doesn’t give a single shit about politicians draped in red or blue, sitting in their cozy homes on hilltops far above the grime and grit of war. She is a fixer, a protector, using her connections to amplify the voices of those whose concerns would otherwise go unheard.

“Of course,” he says, already imagining the inevitable migraine that will accompany that particular line of discussion when he brings it to the Makedonian leadership. But he’ll do it gladly, because Kassandra has requested it, and he would climb into the heavens to bring her the fucking moon if she asked it of him, gods and men alike be damned.

And also because they both know that it’s the right fucking thing to do.

He almost laughs. A combined army of helots and Daughters of Artemis, fighting side by side with a Spartiate ex-spy and an ex-Spartan mercenary—what a sight that will be to behold. The Athenians will think they’ve lost their fucking minds.

Kassandra kisses him again, fumbling at the fastenings of his armor until he sheds it for her, tugging at his _chiton_ until he sheds that, too, guiding him gently backwards until the backs of his knees meet the edge of his cot and he pulls her down with him, gazing up in awe as she pulls off her own armor, the dips and curves of her body resplendent in the moonlight that filters in through the opening at the top of his tent.

He could spend eternity here, he thinks, doing nothing but drinking in the sight of her and marveling at his own good fortune—but then her lips are on his again, and her hand trails down his stomach, and he groans as she ghosts her fingers down the insides of his thighs. She glances up at him when she reaches the scar on his thigh, thick and brutal, a souvenir from Pylos, and her gaze is searching. Looking for permission, he realizes. Assurance. He gives her a nod—it’s healed as much as it ever will—and she continues her exploration. Testing. Teasing.

Two can play at that game.

She gives a little cry of surprise when he flips her onto her back, dissolving into laughter as he kisses the side of her neck, the way he knows she likes, his breath tickling the sensitive spot there, and he can smell the thick, rich scent of her as she guides his hand to her cunt, slick and wet and waiting. She cries out again when his thumb brushes her clit, a keening sound that cuts through the quiet of the campsite.

“Careful,” he says, his voice a growling rumble. “You don’t want to wake up the entire beach, do you?”

“Let them wake,” she purrs, fucking herself on his fingers. “Let the Athenians hear all that Brasidas of Sparta can conquer, and tremble in their tents.”

“I’d rather have you all to myself tonight,” he replies, “if that’s alright with you.”

She grins, wide and wolffish, rolling her hips against his stiff cock and he groans, long and low into her collarbone as she takes him inside of her.

And this—oh, he’s missed this, too. Her warmth, her smell. The taut, smooth lines of her muscles, her skin slick with sweat, her little gasps as he pushes into her. A whisper of his name in his ear, her breath fluttering on his pulse, and the heat that builds inside of them both, building and building in this dance that only the two of them can dance—until she arches her body into his, pulling him close and tight into her, as close as any two people can get, and he rides out the waves of her pleasure and comes with a broken cry that she captures with her mouth on his, shuddering against him until they’re both thoroughly spent, falling soft and languid into each other’s arms.

She presses her back against his chest and he curls an arm around her waist, cradling her to him, trailing kisses down her neck, her shoulders, the scars on her arms. She takes his hand in hers, pressing her lips to his knuckles, and brings it up to rest on her chest, splayed between her breasts, so that he can feel the steady thumping of her heart beating in time with his.

“I dreamed of you,” she murmurs, “lying there with me, in that cold and desolate prison cell in Athens. I thought I’d lost you in Pylos, but in my head I dreamed you back to life.”

“What did we do in your dreams?” he asks.

Kassandra laughs. “Nothing too exciting, I’m afraid. Just natterings, really, most of which I don’t remember. Sometimes we fucked,” she admits with a rueful grin, “but mostly I just wanted you there. Your arms around mine, your breath in my ear. Some small scrap of goodness I could cling to, that they could never take from me.”

He understands. Oh, he understands. He thinks back to the long, lonely nights of recuperation once they’d hauled him back to Sparta to heal from his injuries. Of the heaviness on his shoulders, the despair when he’d thought her dead. Then the short-lived relief on learning that she was alive—only to be replaced with icy dread, knowing that she was in the clutches of their enemies.

But it doesn’t matter. None of that matters. They’ve found each other again.

He smiles. “And how do I compare, here and now, to those dreams?”

She turns to face him then, bringing up a hand to explore the planes of his face, as if committing every inch of him to memory. Her eyes are wide and earnest, shining in the light of the moon.

“There is no comparison,” she whispers, and he pulls her in for another kiss.

The gods can keep their Elysium, he thinks, so long as he has this. Has her, here, with him. But then she pulls away, sitting up, as if she’s just remembered something urgent.

“Tomorrow,” she says, “when we march into battle—if he shows up again—”

She doesn’t have to explain who _he_ is. Brasidas knows. The entire Spartan army, Spartiates and helots alike, they all know. Everyone knows.

“—Don’t engage him, Brasidas.” Her voice is cold and flat. “I don’t care how many of your men he kills. I don’t care if he cuts me down in front of you. _Do not fight him._ ”

“You know I can’t do that,” he replies. “I know he’s—”

 _Your brother_ , he doesn’t say, because she hasn’t told him, but he knows. Everyone fucking knows. But it’s not his place to press her for information she won’t willingly give, so he says:

“I know he’s dangerous, Kassandra. I’ve seen him fight with my own two eyes. But if he’s there tomorrow, if he crosses my path, I will not hesitate. I’ll spare him if I can, but I will not back down.”

“Brasidas—”

“We are so close, Kassandra,” he says, very nearly pleading. “The war could end tomorrow if we play this right. A near decade of ceaseless violence, until the earth and seas have run red with the blood of sons and fathers and brothers. I want an end to this madness, and that end is so close I can feel it. When I breathe the air outside, on that beach, I can almost taste the sweetness of peace on my tongue. I have a responsibility to Sparta. A responsibility to the men I’m leading. To the people of Amphipolis.”

“No city is worth your life,” Kassandra hisses, a fire in her eyes. “I can think of nothing that would even come close. Not Sparta. Not Amphipolis. Not even the end of this fucking war.”

_What about your brother’s life?_

_If, gods forbid, it comes down to that tomorrow—to him or me—_

He doesn’t want to know the answer.

“Alright,” he concedes, reaching for her hand. Laces their fingers together and gives it a little squeeze. “I won’t let what you fear come to pass.”

_I won’t let you have to make that choice._

Gods, he loves her.

He pulls her to him, wiping away the wetness on her cheeks. Holds her close, her head on his shoulder, tracing little circles on the side of her arm with the pad of his thumb. It’s quiet now, at this late hour. Only the distant sound of waves lapping at the shore where they will march come dawn, and the steady thumping of their hearts beating in unison.

Some minutes or hours or lifetimes later, while the sky is still dark, Kassandra disentangles herself from his embrace.

“I should go,” she sighs, rooting around for her armor, strewn about the floor of his tent in their earlier frenzy. “The Daughters and I will meet you here to march at dawn, but as their leader I should return to their camp.”

Brasidas nods, pulling on his thin _chiton_. He walks with her to the edge of the Spartan camp, then hesitates, chewing on his lip.

“When we win tomorrow,” he says, “I must stay in Makedonia a while to help forge the treaty that will put this war to rest once and for all. I imagine you’ll be moving onto your next job, your next contract. Following up on Cultist leads.”

Kassandra nods.

“Meet me in Sparta, when this is all over,” he says. “I should be there by the start of autumn, when the leaves begin to change their colors. I—”

_I never want to let you out of my sight again._

_I want a future with you, Kassandra, whatever that means for me. For us._

“I love you, Brasidas,” Kassandra whispers, kissing him, soft and sweet. Then she squares her shoulders and steps back, tall and strong and so fucking beautiful, her eyes searching his.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” she says, but there’s a hesitation there. A question. A plea.

Searching for a promise they both know is out of their control.

Brasidas nods.

“Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> Credit where credit is due: the last lines of dialogue, _"See you on the other side." / "Always."_ is taken directly from the TV show Black Sails, because it's a damn good show with damn good dialogue that has stuck with me to this day!


End file.
